Introducing and testing FLIBESA, a consumer profiling tool for the financial industry: the case of Millennium BCPbank and the portuguese diaspora in the USA

Consumer profiling is not a recent concept. Different individuals and organizations have been taking the role of profilers, from independent researchers to developed organizations. However, there are still few tools to assist those who need to gather consumer or customer knowledge, especially instruments tailored to a specific industry. The Financial Industry is no exception. This paper introduces and tests the Financial Literacy Behavior and Satisfaction (FLIBESA) tool, a consumer profiling instrument customized to the Financial Industry. FLIBESA has two dimensions: on one hand, it includes a pre-designed questionnaire structure and data analysis methodology. On the other hand, each profiler can personalize FLIBESA’s variables of study, to best serve its needs and goals. It includes four interrelated sections: 1. Financial Literacy: enquires those who take the survey on their knowledge of financial terminologies and includes them in one of the Quintiles of Financial Literacy; 2. Financial Behavior: scores the profiled group according to its involvement with Financial Institutions and includes it in one of the Quintiles of Financial Involvement; 3. Financial Satisfaction: aims to describe the Financial Satisfaction of the respondents (applying a modified Servqual Model), including them in one of the Quintiles of Financial Satisfaction; 4. Personal Information: respondents’ demographics and personal data. The first test of the FLIBESA tool was performed by a US-based financial institution. Millennium bcpbank used FLIBESA to profile its target market: the Portuguese diaspora in the USA, living in the states of Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. After the application of the FLIBESA tool (personalized to fit Millennium bcpbank’s needs), the Portuguese diaspora is concluded to have High Financial Literacy, Some Involvement with Financial Institutions and to be Satisfied with its Financial Institutions. As for the FLIBESA tool itself, and after analyzing its strengths and details that need improvement, it’s concluded that it has potential to become a reference in knowledge collection and consumer profiling.O conceito de perfilamento de consumidores já não é inovador. Investigadores independentes e grandes organizações necessitam, por diferentes razões, de perfilar consumidores ou clientes. No entanto, existe ainda um pequeno número de ferramentas de apoio para quem deseja recolher conhecimento, especialmente instrumentos personalizados a uma indústria específica. A Indústria Financeira não é excepção. Esta dissertação destina-se à apresentação e teste da ferramenta FLIBESA (Financial Literacy, Behavior and Satisfaction), um instrumento de perfilamento de consumidores, personalizado à Indústria Financeira. A FLIBESA tem duas dimensões: por um lado, inclui uma estrutura pré-desenhada com questionário e tratamento de dados. Por outro lado, cada indivíduo ou organização pode personalizar a FLIBESA com as suas próprias variáveis de estudo, indo ao encontro das suas necessidades e objectivos. A FLIBESA inclui quatro secções inter-relacionadas: 1. Conhecimento Financeiro: interroga os respondentes em relação ao seu conhecimento de terminologias financeiras, incluindo-os num dos Quintis de Conhecimento Financeiro; 2. Comportamento Financeiro: pontua o grupo perfilado de acordo com o seu envolvimento com instituições financeiras, incluindo-o num dos Quintis de Envolvimento Financeiro; 3. Satisfação Financeira: tem como objectivo descrever a satisfação financeira dos respondentes (aplicando uma escala Servqual modificada), incluindo-os num dos Quintis de Satisfação Financeira; 4. Informação Pessoal: dados demográficos e outras informações pessoais. O primeiro teste da FLIBESA foi feito por uma instituição financeira sedeada nos Estados Unidos da América. O Millennium bcpbank utilizou a FLIBESA para perfilar o seu público-alvo: a diáspora portuguesa nos EUA, residente nos Estados de Massachusetts, Nova Jérsia e Nova Iorque. Após a aplicação da FLIBESA (personalizada às necessidades do Millennium bcpbank), conclui-se que a diáspora portuguesa tem um Elevado Conhecimento Financeiro, Algum Envolvimento com Instituições Financeiras e está Satisfeita com as suas Instituições Financeiras. Em relação à FLIBESA como ferramenta de perfilamento, e depois de analisar as suas vantagens e detalhes que precisam de ser aperfeiçoados, conclui-se que tem potencial para se tornar um instrumento de referência na recolha de conhecimento e perfilamento de consumidores

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved